


What If I Knew How To Tell? (What Would I Say?)

by PanBoleyn



Series: Pan's Daemon AUs [2]
Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon-Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Kidnapping, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 20:45:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16502414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: Even in a timeline where people's souls walk beside them, and these daemons are often much more affectionate than their humans dare to be, it still takes an emergency to get Kent and Chandler together.





	What If I Knew How To Tell? (What Would I Say?)

_ Kent and Nessa don’t expect the trip to the crossroads. Kent doesn’t even want to admit to being spooked by the rumors flying around, but he can’t help it when Chandler looks at him in that way he has, the one that seems honestly concerned. _

  
  


_ Aunt Lisa’s psychic, sure, and there’s times Kent’s been convinced by her, but he doesn’t -  _

  
  


_ He doesn’t know what he thinks, about aswangs and all that. But he tells Chandler the truth when he asks, he watches him stand at a crossroads and tell a story, and his heart turns over in his chest. He thinks -  _ **_I can’t keep this up forever, you see me but you don’t, what the hell do I do with that?_ **

  
  


_ The thing about the crossroads incident is that, in the months that follow, Kent and Nessa wish it had never happened. They know, they understand, they read too much into it. They read too much into the way Euthenia seems so fond of Nessa.  _

  
  


_ Hope is the thing with feathers, Kent’s seen that line somewhere, he doesn’t know where it’s from or what it means, but there’s a sort of appropriateness, given that Euthenia is an owl. Most of the little hope they’d had was bound up in her, after all, in how affectionate she’s always been with Nessa.  _

  
  


_ There’s a moment in a dark movie theater, Chandler’s palm between his shoulder blades, and Kent feels the contact all the way down to his feet, down to his bones. A moment where even in the middle of a case his breath catches and Nessa wants to purr.  _

  
  


_ But they don’t. They know better.  _

  
  


_ And then there’s Morgan Lamb. Nessa whispers to him not to get too jealous - “look how Euthenia doesn’t get too close to her daemon” - but all Kent can see is that Chandler smiles easily with her, he seems to trust her instinctively even though  _ **_she hasn’t been cleared as a suspect yet._ **

  
  


_ He looks at her - not quite how Kent wishes Chandler would look at him, but he looks at her in a way that could grow into what Kent’s spent three years hoping for against all his common sense. _

  
  


_ He’s not, usually, a cruel man. But it hurts, and the hurt makes him angry. Maybe he pushes too hard, when talking to Dr. Lamb. Maybe he’s too suspicious because he wants her to be involved. Or maybe he’s right. No one but Chandler seems to think he’s overdone it, but he doesn’t know if they’re just keeping out of it.  _

  
  


_ He can’t trust himself, but he doesn’t think Chandler’s thinking clearly either. Maybe they should both be off this one.  _

  
  


_ “You can't see it because you don't want to, because you're clearly attracted to her!” he snaps, and it’s all out on the table, God, he might as well literally turn green, his jealousy is so obvious. _

  
  


_ “What did you say?” And he’s never heard Chandler like that, never seen that look in his eyes - even when he thought Kent was a traitor he’d just looked sad, looked hurt, he hadn’t looked angry enough to throttle him.  _

  
  


_ Apologize, he tells Kent later. I’m not really the bad cop, Kent tells Morgan Lamb, and she says maybe it suits him better than he thinks, her blue jay daemon watching Nessa warily (cats eat birds, but Nessa doesn’t want to so much as growl, she’s too tired, they’re too tired). _

  
  


_ Morgan Lamb dies when Kent leaves her alone, and though he didn’t know, he couldn’t have known -  _

  
  


_ Chandler blames him, it’s so obvious Kent almost chokes on the awareness of it. It twists him up, it twists Nessa up, hurt that turns to rage that they spill out onto Mansell who they like in spite of themself, on Erica who they love more than they’ve ever loved themself. Worry turns to cruelty and they almost don’t know their own reflection. _

  
  


_ Fists in the incident room, lies to his sister. “I just hate seeing other people happy. It just eats away at me and makes me angry,” he tells Mansell, trying to apologize, trying to explain without explaining too much (he’ll make up for this but he won’t leave himself open to more mockery). _

  
  


_ “Maybe other people's happiness remind you of what you're missing,” Mansell says, and he’s more right than he knows, his monkey patting Nessa absently on the head.  _

  
  


_ “Well done,” Chandler says, and there’s no thrill to it anymore, Kent wants there to be, wants it to mean something, but it’s like his heart can’t risk it. The pub invite - he doesn’t plan it. He doesn’t know why he does it, only he’s tired and he doesn’t have any hope left and so now it doesn’t matter if he tries -  _

  
  


_ And then it all goes to hell and it really doesn’t matter. _

  
  


<><><>

  
  


None of them know what to do, in the wake of the Abrahamians. It only takes a day to find out that the van driver is the one who set the explosion - he never participated in the murders, but his flat is full of things that prove he was one of the cult. There had been nothing to indicate him in any of the evidence they had, though. “Couldn’t have been predicted,” is the eventual verdict, with the only criticism being that maybe they shouldn’t have put them all in the same van, But that’s standard enough procedure that it’s mostly an absent regret.

  
  


Kent - all of them, really - expect Chandler to turn inward again, the way he had in the wake of Morgan Lamb, but after about a week of just that it’s almost the opposite. Euthenia, who’s been pretty constantly on her office perch, now glides in and out of the half-open office door, as if checking on them. She and Mansell’s monkey start making a game out of whether or not the monkey can reach the owl as she flies by. Miles’ bulldog huffs as much as her human at antics like this, while Riley’s greyhound joins in by racing about under Euthenia, seeing who can move faster. Buchan and his squirrel think it’s all hilarious, and occasionally Euthenia picks her up to go along for the ride.

  
  


Nessa’s small enough for the same, and occasionally Euthenia swoops in close like she means to, but Nessa burrows into her nest in Kent’s bottom drawer and makes herself impossible to grab. It makes Miles frown and Riley give them worried looks, but Kent and Nessa don’t care. 

  
  


“What the fuck’s up with you now?” Mansell asks - he’s still a bit annoyed at how easily Erica got over Kent’s lying, but Erica had explained that she’d done the same thing to her brother six years back, it’s an occasional bad habit they get into of meddling  _ way  _ beyond their rights. Both twins had sat down with Mansell at Erica’s flat and hashed things out, so that’s mostly settled. 

  
  


“Nothing,” Kent says, scowling at his computer screen. 

  
  


“Yeah, all right. Your daemon ignoring Chandler’s is just normal then.” 

  
  


“It is now.” 

  
  


And it is, because there’s an awkwardness with him and Chandler now. They never did go for drinks, obviously, as part of the group or alone like he’d accidentally asked, and, well... Either Chandler finally figured out how Kent feels about him and never mentioning it again is his weird idea of letting Kent down gently - which he doesn’t fucking need, thank you very much - or, well, he’s decided he still blames Kent for what happened with Morgan Lamb. Whichever it is, things are fucked again, and it’s one time too many as far as Kent’s concerned.

  
  


He tells Erica this when she asks about it, and Gareth huffs, twining around Nessa, kodkod and sand cat curled together as easily as their humans sit leaned into each other’s sides. “If they don’t like you anymore, why is the owl trying to play?” Gareth asks. 

  
  


“Gar has a point, Emerson,” Erica points out. 

  
  


“Doesn’t matter. I’ve got to get over him,” Kent says with a tired sort of firmness. “I’ve got to, Erica, before I lose my head again like I did before. I can’t keep going with that, you know?” 

  
  


“Well, if you hadn’t canceled that dating site subscription I got you -” 

  
  


“I don’t think blind dates are the answer. And I don’t want to transfer, so this is my best option, don’t you think?”

  
  


Erica doesn’t answer, just tightens her grip where her arm’s wrapped around his shoulders. Kent closes his eyes, ignoring the all-too-familiar sting there. Nessa and Gareth flop into their laps, the different fur textures brushing his knuckles both equally familiar. 

  
  


(He used to wonder what Euthenia’s feathers would feel like under his fingers, almost as much as he wondered about how it’d feel to run his fingers through Chandler’s hair, or feel his hands on him. He hasn’t let himself think of any of that in a long, long time. What’s the fucking point.)

  
  


<><><>

  
  


They’re trying. No one can say they’re not. 

  
  


Well, if Chandler’s honest with himself, Enia’s trying more than he is, but they’re the same person, and she’s better at it. Where he shies away from touch more often than not, she welcomes it, and likes nothing more than to take favored daemons by surprise with a playful cuff of her wing or a fly-by to pick them up. She makes friends where he’s awkward, and it lets them show they actually do like the people around them even if he’s a disaster at showing it to the human halves of those people.

  
  


“Nessa’s still hiding from me,” Enia says one night, five weeks after the Abrahamians fiasco. She’s tucked up in her nest, Chandler on his couch with a book in hand, and he reaches out with his free hand to stroke her head, trying to soothe the misery he can hear in her voice. “I miss her, Joe. I’ve missed her for  _ ages _ , and now she won’t come back.”

  
  


There’s misery there, but anger too - and Chandler knows the anger is with him. Morgan had been the rare exception for them, someone with whom he had been more comfortable than Enia. It wasn’t that she’d  _ disliked  _ Morgan’s daemon, but she hadn’t felt the ease of connection that she felt so often and he felt so rarely. After - after she’d died, he’d needed someone to blame. Kent was easiest; he’d been just  _ minutes  _ from catching Mrs. Watney before she could do anything, if he’d just stayed… 

  
  


But that’s foolish, and he knows that, he does know that now. It made more sense to blame whoever let Mrs. Watney get that far, if anyone. It was just that he didn’t know them so he couldn’t loose his anger on them when it was the only way to cope he had.

  
  


Being angry with Kent and Lynessa over their drama with Mansell and Allyria was more reasonable, but they’ve dealt with it amongst themselves so he certainly has no right to dwell on the issue. The trouble is, somewhere in the unfair blame and the more justified anger, something seems to have, well, broken. 

  
  


He’s not a stupid man. He’s not even an  _ unobservant  _ man or he’d have no business being a detective. Chandler will admit that he’s not the most perceptive when it comes to other people, that he has a tendency to misread things when they fall outside the structures he’s familiar with. He’s known for years how to handle a fancy dress affair, he knows the patterns of a police interview. After four years in Whitechapel, he knows the rules of his team too, all the things that had seemed like chaos to him once until he learned that there was a pattern to them too. 

  
  


Still, there’ve been more fumbles than he likes to remember, before he figured it out, and when he was too lost in his head to bother even after he had. 

  
  


Aside from that though, he’s not blind. It probably took him entirely too long to think anything of Lynessa’s watchfulness, or Kent’s eagerness to please, the way he seemed to be the most accommodating of Chandler’s quirks. In fact, he’s entirely sure it took him too long to think anything of it. But when he’d finally stopped being angry with Kent about Morgan, he’d turned to wondering why Kent had taken so against her in the first place. 

  
  


From there, well. That slip of the tongue had been the last bit of proof he’d needed really.  _ Would you like to come for a drink with me - us? _ And he’d answered both questions, though he supposes Kent doesn’t know that. 

  
  


“We haven’t done anything,” he tells Enia tiredly, rubbing at his temples and considering going for his Tiger Balm. “If they’re avoiding us, maybe they’re embarrassed.” 

  
  


_ Maybe they’ve finally given us up as a lost cause,  _ he doesn’t say. 

  
  


Strange. He’d only put the pieces together recently, late at night when sleep wouldn’t come, when he’d been trying to think of anything but work. He’d never made any decisions on how he felt about his conclusions, about what, if anything, he might want.

  
  


So why does it ache so much to realize the choice may be out of his hands before he’s managed to grapple with it?

  
  


<><><>

  
  


In the end, it’s Nessa who gives up on the new plan before Kent does. This isn’t exactly a surprise. 

  
  


They take a week off. They have weeks of time stored up because they rarely bother to take it, but after the chat with Erica and Gareth, Kent goes into work armed with a time-off request. If something flickers in Chandler’s eyes before he signs it, if Euthenia shifts uncomfortably on her perch or in her nest, Kent pretends he doesn’t notice.

  
  


But Nessa… Oh, Nessa notices. And as ever, his daemon has a mind of her own. So on their first day back, she takes up residence on the corner of his desk. A place in easy reach, should there be an owl about in the mood to pick up a cat.

  
  


It takes two days, and Chandler coming back from a court date with his lips pressed tight together and Euthenia circling restlessly even in the office. Kent isn’t expecting it, when Euthenia soars down and takes hold of Nessa, who squeaks her surprise even as Kent’s fingers still on his keyboard. 

  
  


He assumes Euthenia will take Nessa for a ride like she does Ed’s Antonia and then set her down again. He is not expecting the eagle owl to glide back into Chandler’s office, deposit Nessa in her nest, and then settle down there with her. Nessa’s face peeks out from under one of Euthenia’s wings, and Kent can’t deny that however bewildered they both are, Nessa is also… content. 

  
  


He can’t hear her purring from here, but he can feel it in his very bones. 

  
  


Chandler is staring at the nest, jar of Tiger Balm apparently forgotten in his hands, and then he looks at Kent. It’s like a jolt, that look, and Kent wonders if Chandler feels something from his own daemon the way Kent feels Nessa’s purring, and if that’s why color stains Chandler’s cheeks. 

  
  


But then, his own blush feels like it might scorch his skin off. So Kent ducks his head and gets back to work, ignoring the looks from everyone else. If his fingers skitter on the keys a bit because his hands aren’t quite steady, well, it’s not the first time he’s had to work with hands that shake. 

  
  


It occurs to him that if Euthenia had been actively  _ trying  _ to short-circuit the plan for him and Ness to get over the owl and her human, she couldn’t possibly have done a better job.

  
  


(It never does occur to him to think that maybe she knew this too, and  _ had  _ in fact been trying.)

  
  


<><><>

  
  


“What the hell are you doing!?” Chandler snaps the moment his flat door closes behind them, glaring at the owl who is calmly gliding over to her perch. “I thought we agreed that if Kent and Lynessa seemed more open that we would go slowly. Not that you would snatch her up and  _ keep  _ her all day!”

  
  


“Given that she barely stopped purring while I had her, I don’t think she was complaining,” Enia says smugly. 

  
  


“That is not the point!” 

  
  


“It’s exactly the point, Joe. We want them. How are we going to have even a shot at getting them unless we take a risk or two?”

  
  


“We didn’t agree that we were going to try, Euthenia. I still think it’s a bad idea. We’re - I’m -  _ difficult _ . It’s more than most people are willing to handle, and I would prefer not to lose an excellent detective because of a personal mess.” 

  
  


“Kent and Nessa know we’re difficult, better than anyone in the office except Miles and Clary. It hasn’t put them off yet,” Enia says. 

  
  


“They haven’t had to deal with it in a personal context either,” Chandler says, and his voice is dark. He’s tried dating, occasionally, at university and in his first two years on the force - there had been Miranda and Natalie, and also Daniel. None of which had lasted long, and really the only net positive from how those had turned out is he has basic working knowledge of the physical parts of a relationship. And, unfortunately, three separate examples of why his…  _ quirks  _ are too much to tolerate in extended close proximity.

  
  


Two women and one man, and then that thought of  _ maybe _ , with Morgan. Chandler told Miles he’s not gay because it’s the truth, but bisexual has never seemed to fit right either. It’s  _ people _ , specific people, and otherwise there’s nothing at all. He supposes there might be words for that, but he’d rather not know. He has words enough for himself, labels and diagnoses, and for all he craves order sometimes the explanations feel more like stains than organization.

  
  


And now, Kent. Or, really, not  _ just  _ now because he’s always been there, hasn’t he? From the first full day at Whitechapel, a hand offering chalk, a pair of dark eyes wary and sympathetic at the same time. The first to take the new dress code to heart, in almost a mimicry of Joe himself. And of course the tiny wildcat on Kent’s shoulder, always watching. 

  
  


He’s always been  _ aware  _ of Kent, in a way he hadn’t noticed until recently. This is true, and it’s also true that Enia took a liking to Lynessa before even Clary. It doesn’t mean they should encourage Kent and Lynessa’s interest, or pursue their own. “He’s one of my constables,” he says to Enia, reaching for his jar of Tiger Balm. The familar cooling sensation, the even more calming scent, aren’t quite as helpful as usual. “If anyone found out, it would look like coercion.” 

  
  


Not that he thinks they’d last long enough to be found out, but with Enia in this mood, it’s better to argue from the perspective of it working. 

  
  


“Kent might have a bit of hero-worship for you, if it’s not the infatuation we’re both sure it is, but he wouldn’t say yes if he didn’t want it. Not for more than one date, to be nice. He’s not that sort of person. We both know it. And Nessa would probably turn us down for him so he wouldn’t have to be nice.” 

  
  


“We know that. An outsider wouldn’t.” 

  
  


“We’ll figure that out if and when it happens. The real problem here is that you’re scared, Joe!” 

  
  


“Well of course I’m scared! There’s about a million ways this doesn’t end well, all of which are more likely than any good outcome.” 

  
  


With Daniel, it had been shouting matches over the things Joe couldn’t help but reorganize, the rituals he couldn’t break. With Natalie, she’d taken it as an insult that he had to shower right after sex, every time. Miranda had been kinder, but blunt - and since she had been his first in more ways than one, she’d unintentionally spoiled him for what came after. It had hurt when she ended things but at least she’d been honest with herself and with him right away, not hung on and hoped that pushing hard enough would change him. 

  
  


And Morgan… He can still see her body on the floor, the gold dust of her vanished daemon scattered beside her. She was a  _ witness _ , she should never have been hurt in their station. And if someone under their protection can die from a moment of carelessness, then - 

  
  


What was it Miles had said? First that he’d be the only one crying at Chandler’s funeral, then that it wasn’t true, that Riley would too, and - 

  
  


_ “And Kent actually. Kent more than anyone.”  _

  
  


He doesn’t want either of them crying at the other’s funeral, as it were. And between Kent’s rotten luck and his own, well… He thinks they’re necessary risks, but everyone else seems to think they’re signs of a lack of self-preservation. Either way, the odds aren’t good, are they?

  
  


He says as much, and Enia huffs, unimpressed. “If we don’t work, then that’s one thing. But - do you really think it would hurt less, if something happened to Kent and Nessa tomorrow, than it would if we’d tried, and got somewhere?” 

  
  


_ Yes _ , Chandler wants to say, _ it would hurt more _ . Because if he lets Kent into his life outside work - not that there’s much of it - then if he loses him, how will he escape the memories? He won’t have anywhere left that doesn’t hold reminders. But then, how much will it haunt him to never know, to  _ wonder _ ?

  
  


He doesn’t know. But the thing is, even if he does want to try, how is he supposed to go about it? He’d never been the one to pursue a relationship, too unsure and then increasingly gun-shy after each disaster. And with Kent… He doesn’t know where to start.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


_ “You don’t know what I’m capable of.” _

  
  


_ He almost doesn’t know why he says it. Almost doesn’t know what he means by it - because really, Chandler doesn’t think he knows what he’s capable of either. His Enia is an owl, a hunter, but he’s never been able - _

  
  


_ He’s always been hampered by his own mind, his own compulsions. _

  
  


_ But with Miles trying to talk his usual gruff common sense, Chandler can barely hear him. All he can register is the familiar weight of Enia on his shoulder, his mind full of Kent’s wide dark eyes, his Lynessa curled in a tiny ball next to him. They could be ruined because he sent them out alone, they could - _

  
  


_ Enia nips hard at his ear. “Stop it, Joe,” she tells him, but she doesn’t stop him from declaring war, she shrieks a challenge of her own with all the rage Chandler’s never known quite how to channel effectively. _

  
  


_ But she doesn’t go with him when he suspends Kent. “Out of everyone, I really wish it hadn’t been you,” he says, and though it’s a truth he feels all through him, he doesn’t know why that’s so. Doesn’t know why it being Kent twists something inside him, doesn’t know why Enia thinks he’s wrong on this one. He only knows that it’s one more thing that tangles him up so he’s left sorting pins, flicking light switches, swallowing down vodka in the middle of a shift. _

  
  


_ He doesn’t know why it matters, why the horror of McCormack’s death still carries an undercurrent of relief, a whisper of  _ **_he didn’t do it, you can get him back now_ ** _ that Chandler hasn’t got time to dwell on. He only knows that something knotted in him comes loose when Kent arrives at Ed’s house, that something else flares when Kent admits to having been in the incident room after all. _

  
  


_ He only knows what he says, and what he means but doesn’t know how to say aloud - “Well, from now on, leave your ego out of it,” he says, and ignores Lynessa’s tiny growl. “All that matters to me is the truth.”  _ **_Next time, tell me. Next time, I don’t want to be the one making it worse, and I can’t stop that if I don’t know._ **

  
  


_ All he knows is that Jimmy Kray asks about his “boy” and Chandler sees Kent’s eyes when he punches Jimmy in the face. _

  
  


<><><>

  
  


They catch a case, and there’s no more time for daemon antics. Kent isn’t sure if he’s annoyed or relieved. He is less confused at least, which is something.

  
  


(Erica and Gareth find the whole thing hilarious. Actually, so does the entire bloody team with the exception of Ed and Carella, who haven’t said anything about it at all. This is...  _ vexing _ , to phrase it like Kent’s cousin who does something tech-related for some part of the government. But there’s also not a damned thing he can do about it.)

  
  


On the other hand, by the time the third body crops up - which, great, another serial - Kent’s confusion is more than made up for by being creeped out. And there’s a very good reason for that. Pictures of the victims stare down from their board now, and while it’s not quite like looking in a mirror, it’s damn close enough.

  
  


He’s never been a perfect match to what looks like an obvious vic profile before. He doesn’t relish the experience now. Kent remembers how it felt to come back to work after his striping, after his suspension. He remembers Chandler taking him to that pub, the way it had felt to know himself hunted but having to try and do his job anyway. This isn’t that, not quite - this time it really is all in his head, because what are the chances that their killer will know which team is on the case and that one of the detectives matches their victim preferences?

  
  


Well… better than is entirely comfortable, given their track record, but Kent’s trying not to think about it. They don’t usually go out alone anymore anyway - a habit from the Kray investigation that’s held. So it hardly matters, right? 

  
  


Now if only Ed - not to mention Riley’s daemon - would stop looking between the board and Kent with their concern all too clear. It doesn’t really help him to not think about it. 

  
  


He doesn’t notice Euthenia at first, but as they find themselves hitting dead end after dead end with the only good news that there’s no fourth victim, he starts to realize Chandler’s owl is watching him. Constantly. “Maybe they’re worried too,” Nessa suggests when they’re at home that night. 

  
  


“I wish everyone would stop worrying. I’m not the next target.” 

  
  


The next day, Chandler’s down with Ed but Euthenia is still up in the office - Mansell, Riley, and Miles are all chasing leads. They know the bond between their DI and his daemon is stretched, it’s not the first time she’s done something like this, but still, it’s so obvious. Especially when she circles the incident room and comes to rest on Kent’s desk. Nessa settles next to her, rubbing her head against Euthenia’s side. 

  
  


“You know we’re fine, right?” Kent says quietly. “You’re worrying too much.”

  
  


“We’re worried just enough,” Euthenia informs him tartly. “So hush, and let us.” 

  
  


“By us, do you mean the team, or you and your human?” Nessa asks, because she’s always been bolder than Kent, and he can’t even speak now, throat tight with nerves because why can’t his daemon just _ leave it alone _ ?

  
  


Euthenia ruffles her feathers, then uses one wing to pull Nessa in against her. “He’s good. This killer. No forensics that we can use, and the pattern’s obvious but with these men running in such different circles, we can’t even use that. I’m sure the rest of the team is worried but I really can only speak for Joe and for me.” 

  
  


“We’re all right, we promise,” Nessa tells her. 

  
  


Kent’s only half listening, because something about Euthenia pointing out so bluntly that they don’t have any usable forensics has him thinking. When he hears footsteps behind him and Euthenia takes flight to land on her human’s shoulder, he says, “What if the killer’s a professional?” 

  
  


“You mean an assassin? That hardly seems likely,” Chandler says, walking to his usual place beside the whiteboard. “I suppose an assassin with a grudge against someone who looks like his victims, but…” 

  
  


“No, not a professional killer, a professional in catching killers. A cop, or a forensics specialist. They’d know better than anyone how to cover their tracks. Maybe he’s killing men who look like a criminal who got away, or something?” 

  
  


“Ed was saying much the same thing, that this is clearly an echo of some other crime, but he can’t find the right precedent.” 

  
  


“Maybe it’s not something that happened in London. I mean, I know Ed’s got information from all over the world, but that doesn’t mean he’s got the right information.” 

  
  


“All the victims were actually killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, with the gunshot wounds to the knees and stomach done post mortem,” Chandler says, and one of his hands is tucked inside his pocket - Kent assumes he’s toying with his jar of Tiger Balm, but he doesn’t take it out. “So if he’s echoing a crime, which injuries are relevant?” 

  
  


“Maybe he’s… maybe it’s - you could argue that it’s mercy, to kill them before shooting out their kneecaps,” Kent says slowly. “Carbon monoxide poisoning, that’s supposed to be gentle, as dying goes. So maybe he’s re-enacting something, to make a point, but he’s being less vicious about it, by making the re-enactment post mortem?”

  
  


“Ed was talking about organized crime deaths - he thought the kneecapping fit that, while the gut shot was punishment, kill them slow… an informant, perhaps.” 

  
  


“Maybe the cop who the informant reported to is taking some kind of weird revenge?” 

  
  


Chandler frowns at Kent’s suggestion. “Not revenge so much as… expelling grief, perhaps. Coping by repetition.”

  
  


Kent isn’t certain which one is worse. Three people are still dead, after all. 

  
  


That night after work, he’s just about to put his helmet on when Nessa yowls in alarm. But there isn’t time to respond before something hits him hard on the head, leaving him staggering before someone grabs him, pressing a rag to his face that smells of something sickly-sweet - 

  
  


And then there’s nothing at all.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Chandler and Enia are the first ones in the next morning, but that’s not unusual. It’s about evenly split, if they come in to an empty incident room or come in to find Kent and Lynessa setting up for the morning. So, they think nothing of it. 

  
  


They use a different entrance than Kent usually does, more convenient to where they like to park, which is why it’s after Miles comes in, not until Riley gets there that she frowns at Kent’s empty desk. “Hey, where’s Kent?” 

  
  


“Running later than usual, apparently, which is still early for anyone else,” Miles answers, but his bulldog daemon goes tense, seeing how Riley’s Shai starts pacing at that response. 

  
  


“His Vespa’s still outside.”

  
  


Chandler had been, mostly absent-mindedly, adjusting the files on his desk to sit parallel with the line of the desk edge. Hearing that through his open door, his hand jerks, sending papers falling to the floor. He bends to pick them up, trying to make himself focus entirely on the action of putting papers back in order, re-stacking, straightening the stack till it’s parallel. 

  
  


“Maybe he parked, then went down to that coffee shop round the corner,” Miles suggests, but there’s a note in his voice that says he doesn’t really believe it. 

  
  


Chandler doesn’t believe it either. 

  
  


Mansell is just taking off his coat when the call comes in. Another body, left in Victoria Park this time. Enia is the usual familiar weight on Chandler’s shoulder as he leaves his office and tells the team, but there’s nothing comforting about it, not this time. 

  
  


He doesn’t look at the incident board, doesn’t look at the three men who look enough like Kent that he’s been tempted to put him off the case since the second victim made a pattern. But he’d told himself that would be foolish, that - 

  
  


He doesn’t look. He sees their faces anyway. He sees their bodies as they’d been left in broken sprawls, dark eyes wide open and sightless.

  
  


And he sees the same thing his sleeping mind has conjured up every night since that first crime scene. Another crime scene, another body, but this time it’s Kent. Kent lying still and broken and Lynessa long gone, vanished into dust still lingering on Kent’s body. 

  
  


He has to turn the key in the ignition ten times before he can drive away from the station. 

  
  


Llywellyn’s beaten him there - actually, the entire team’s beaten him there. Miles is standing just outside the tape, his bulldog pacing back and forth and his mouth set in a hard line. Chandler walks right by him, because if - if it’s - 

  
  


He has to see for himself. 

  
  


Enia’s talons dig into his coat, through to his shirt and he feels them break skin. He dimly thinks he’ll never be able to wear this suit again with holes in the shoulder, and that doesn’t matter but it’s easier to think about that than - 

  
  


His eyes are grey. 

  
  


It’s the only thing Chandler registers, because everything from the helmet next to the body to the suit to the messy dark curls could be Kent, are close enough that his mind tries to make him see Kent lying there. But his eyes are grey,  _ his eyes are grey _ and Kent’s eyes are brown, _ it’s not Kent.  _

  
  


(The previous victims weren’t this good a match. But they all had dark eyes. What does it mean?)

  
  


Shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear it, reaching up to pet Enia, Chandler turns to Miles. “Uh, what do we know?” 

  
  


“Nothing. No ID - at least, not for him.”

  
  


“What do you mean, Miles?” 

  
  


“I mean, you thought it was Kent. We all did. And he wanted us to.” Miles holds up an evidence bag. Inside is Kent’s warrant card. And the helmet - Chandler looks back. That’s Kent’s helmet, it has a streak of blue paint down the left side from the time a suspect got hold of it and threw it at them to distract them from the chase. It had hit a wall and the blue never came off.

  
  


Kent’s helmet, Kent’s warrant card, a victim who looks more like Kent than any of them till you get to the eyes - 

  
  


“Whoever it is has Kent and Nessa, and they’re telling us if we don’t find them, they’re dead.” Enia says it because Chandler’s throat’s closed, and he doesn’t know how to form the words himself. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Kent comes awake slowly, and the first thing he’s aware of is how much his head aches. The second thing he’s aware of is that he’s zip-tied to a chair, in a garage. Nessa’s at his feet, trapped in what looks like a cheap birdcage. She looks as furious as Kent would feel if his head didn’t  _ hurt  _ so badly.

  
  


“You’re awake, Julian.” The voice is low, rough. American accent.

  
  


“That’s… not my name,” Kent says, and after the words are out he realizes that was a stupid thing to say. Playing along with one’s captor is usually the best option until they slip up. 

  
  


“No,” the man says, and now he comes into view. His eyes are a pale green, his hair almost a white-blonde. Kent can’t see a daemon, and only the lingering fog in his brain muffles the possible horrors of that. “No, but you look like him. And you’re like him. We were cops too once, before I lost him.” 

  
  


Shit. They’d said a professional, hadn’t they, yesterday? He thinks it must be yesterday, he isn’t sure. God, how long was he out for? That… it doesn’t bode well, but then again neither does being cuffed in a garage with a serial killer who has no visible daemon, his own Nessa locked in a cage at his feet. “Why’d you do this, if you were a cop?” 

  
  


_ He took me from the station _ , Kent tells himself.  _ There will be footage of it, all I need is to keep him distracted for a little while _ . It’s hard to do that with his head pounding, but luckily there’s always the same questions of motive. If he can get the man talking… 

  
  


“What would you do, if it were that tall captain of yours?” 

  
  


It takes Kent a few minutes to parse all that - first, that this man, whose name he still doesn’t know, has been observing them, maybe did research, who knows. Second, captain’s a military term as far as he’s concerned, but one of his former flatmates is mad for American crime dramas and though they’ve all finally gone their separate ways they’d all caught a few episodes of everyone else’s favorite shows. He doesn’t think it’s actually the right parallel rank but the man has to be talking about Chandler. 

  
  


Third, that is not a comfortable realization, because he can’t be  _ that  _ obvious, can he?

  
  


“No cop’s daemon would pick another one’s up unless there was more to you,” says a new voice when Nessa hisses, low and angry. Kent blinks and realizes the man’s daemon has been there all along, a coal-black raven hidden by shadows. “I couldn’t pick up Dahy, but I used to ride on his back. He was bigger than you, but still a cat. Another wildcat, another bird. And you look  _ so  _ like him…”

  
  


The third crime scene. Kent had collided with a SOCO bloke, knocking Nessa from his shoulder, but it had been Euthenia who swooped in and caught her, soaring up for a moment before gently depositing Nessa into Kent’s hands. 

  
  


“So you were partners, on and off the clock,” Kent says slowly. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’d want to hurt people like someone did your Julian.” He doesn’t know his captor’s name, so he uses the dead man’s, trying to sound sympathetic, to make them real. “I mean, why -” 

  
  


The man backhands him. Kent’s head snaps to the side, and the abrupt movement does him no favors; the world spins into sickly swirls of color for long minutes. 

  
  


“I  _ don’t  _ do the same thing,” his captor snarls as Kent’s vision clears. He almost wishes it hadn’t - the wild look in the man’s eyes is not a good sign. “I make it peaceful, and then I make myself look, look again and again and one of these days it’s not going to hurt anymore. And  _ you  _ \- maybe now it will stop.” 

  
  


“Why? Why would it stop with me? Wouldn’t killing another cop make it worse for you?” Kent asks, because it would be nice if he could avoid being murdered by talking the man out of it. He doesn’t think it’s likely, but it’s worth trying in any case.

  
  


“No, because I know this time someone’s going to have the same pain I have. I know it. I’ll give it away, and I’ll be free of it. Finally. I can let go.” 

  
  


Well. Fuck.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


“He had to want us to find him,” Riley says as she pins the photo to the board. There’d been CCTV footage of one Dominic Wyatt, former member of the NYPD, hitting Kent over the head with a baton, then pressing a rag to his face that must have been soaked in chloroform or similar, because after a moment Kent was clearly unconscious. Once they’d had a face, matching the name had been easy. Wyatt was actually in some of Ed’s international files - he and his partner had been something of a dream team for Major Crimes at their precinct. 

  
  


Until said partner, Julian Clark, had gone undercover with a crime ring, and been found out. Julian Clark’s photo is on their whiteboard too, the official one that ran in the New York papers when he was killed. Curling black hair, big dark eyes, a face younger than his years. 

  
  


“He’s re-creating his partner’s murder, but why?” Mansell says, putting up another photo. This one is of Clark dead on the ground, from two shots to his knees and one to his gut - unlike Wyatt’s victims, though, Clark was left to bleed out slow. 

  
  


“Coping by repetition,” Chandler says quietly, remembering that just yesterday he’d been talking motives with Kent. And now - 

  
  


He’d wondered if it might be worse, to be haunted by what he never tried to have. Now he knows.

  
  


“You think he’s repeating his partner’s murder to help himself deal with it?” Miles asks, then scowls. “He figures he kills enough people and leaves the bodies like his partner was, it’ll make him feel better about, what, letting it happen?” 

  
  


“Or he thinks if he sees the same display often enough it won’t hurt anymore,” Riley says. “They were partners, he must have grieved…”

  
  


“It hardly matters,” Chandler says abruptly. “We have to find him. Do we have any idea where he lives?” 

  
  


They do, within an hour. On the way there, Chandler has to remind himself that he is a cop, he can break speed limits with sirens going but he can’t just plow through intersections without  _ some  _ degree of caution. But he bites the inside of his cheek at every red light, hard enough that by the time they round the last corner, he can taste blood in his mouth. 

  
  


(He can smell it in the air, blood and other things, and it’s his nightmare again, Kent broken on the ground.  _ No, he can’t, he can’t be _ -)

  
  


They’re just getting out of their cars when there’s a loud crash and a car bursts through a closed garage door. It doesn’t get far before it comes to a stop, but Chandler knows the figure who half falls out of the driver’s seat, he knows who it is that can’t get his feet under him. 

  
  


He’s running across the grass to get to Kent before his brain catches up enough for him to realize he’d decided to do it. 

  
  


<><><>

  
  


The car’s driver-side window is rolled down, Kent notices as the American gets up. He reaches through the open window and turns the key, leaving the car running. Then he and his raven leave, without looking back at Kent and Nessa once. There’s the sound of a deadbolt sliding home after they close the door behind them, a sound that says  _ no escape this way _ as clear as any sign would.

  
  


Kent remembers then, that the victims had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. He remembers that, talking to Chandler yesterday, he’d called it a gentle death, as deaths went. Here and now, with the smell of car exhaust already near to overpowering, already coughing, it doesn’t seem particularly gentle at all. 

  
  


“We have to do something!” Nessa says, voice shrill. 

  
  


Yes, of course, but what? He’s zip-tied to the chair, and their killer was smart about it. Each of his wrists are separately bound to the back of the chair. The angle’s all wrong to break them with friction, and though Kent knows several ways to get out of zip ties, all those methods are based on both wrists being bound together.

  
  


But Nessa could break them with her teeth. If she wasn’t caged… It’s a very cheap cage. And in range of his unbound legs. 

  
  


“Ness, I’m going to kick your cage against the far wall,” he says. He played football in school; he wasn’t the best athlete but he had a very good kick, and pretty good aim when he had a shot at the goal. It could kill her (and him), rather than break the cage door… but if he doesn’t do it, they’re dead anyway.

  
  


He’s sure the station CCTV caught his abduction, he’s sure the team will be looking for him. He’s also sure they won’t be fast enough. So he has to do what he couldn’t do when the Krays’  men cornered him, and save himself. 

  
  


He kicks Nessa’s cage as hard as he can manage. It sails across the room and its little door bursts open with the shock of impact. But Nessa doesn’t move, and Kent’s vision swims. The air is growing thick with the exhaust now… 

  
  


Suddenly in a streak of sand-colored fur Nessa is across the room, sharp little teeth biting at the zip-ties on each of his wrists until they snap. Free, Kent stumbles from the chair, scooping up Nessa and reaching through the driver’s side window to unlock the car. There’s only one way out, because a quick look at the garage door reveals a padlock. 

  
  


So he gets into the car, buckles himself in, and puts Nessa in the glove compartment for lack of a better idea to give her some protection. Then he floors the gas.

  
  


He crashes through the garage door with a terrible screech, his head smacking the back of the car seat. As soon as he’s through, he switches to slam on the brake instead, skidding to a stop just before he’d have gone flying into the street.

  
  


_ I have to get out, I have to run _ , Kent thinks, opening the glove compartment and tucking Nessa under one arm before getting out of the car. Dimly, he’s relieved that the crash didn’t damage the door, but mostly he’s just trying to make himself move. That second hit to the back of his head isn’t doing him any favors, and he can’t seem to find his footing. There’s darkness gathering at the corners of his vision, trying to overtake him, but he can’t let it, not yet.

  
  


Is he at sea? The ground is pitching - 

  
  


His foot catches on a bit of the busted garage door and he feels himself falling, only for someone to catch him around the waist. For a moment, he thinks it’s the serial and he tries to twist free. But he catches the scent of menthol and cloves, distantly he hears a voice in his ear, one he knows, one he trusts (sometimes in spite of himself). 

  
  


“Kent, you’re safe, it’s all right, don’t fight me, calm down.” 

  
  


_ Oh _ , Kent thinks, and lets himself sink into the dark.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


_ “They’re  _ **_beautiful_ ** _. It really isn’t fair,” Nessa whispers in Kent’s ear, low so that no one else can hear. She’s perfected the tone by now, so he doesn’t worry about anyone else overhearing. Harder to brush aside is the sting of mockery as he hands their new DI the chalk he’s been waiting for. _

  
  


_ “Thank you…” _

  
  


_ “Kent.” _

  
  


_ “Thank you, Kent.” _

  
  


_ Nessa does not purr, thank God. That, she hasn’t figured out how to do quietly enough to go unnoticed. She is right, though, about the new DI and his daemon. An owl of some kind, though he’ll have to look up owls to identify it down to the exact species. And he’s probably going to, even though it’s sort of an invasion of privacy. _

  
  


_ “They won’t be here long, just - remember that. And stop staring!” Kent hisses when he’s locked himself and Nessa in a toilet stall long enough to have this little chat. _

  
  


_ “Well then, it doesn’t matter if I stare, does it?” Nessa says in her loftiest voice, and Kent scowls. _

  
  


_ Nessa keeps it up the night of the stakeout, when Kent and Sanders are casually eating takeout, playing the role of men out to get pissed while Chandler is painfully obvious in his Savile Row suit and his tension. His owl - an eagle owl - circles above his head and she’s even more obvious, but then Nessa is watching her rather than their surroundings and Sanders’ raccoon looks suspicious. _

  
  


_ God bloody damn it. _

  
  


_ After that, things are too busy for Kent to care what Nessa does. At this point, he knows better than to think he can talk his daemon out of anything; she’s his most stubborn side made flesh until he gets pigheaded instead, after all. She’s always been like that, her and him and Erica and Gareth taking on different roles to balance each other out. _

  
  


_ And, ok, he’s not doing much better, showing up to work in suits from secondhand shops that aren’t anywhere near fancy, but at least started life as something half decent. “You look like the boss,” and all that. He doesn’t but he does in a kind of knockoff way, he’s just trying to not admit it in so many words. And at least Nessa likes the pockets of his suit jacket. She curls up there with only her head poking out, and though it makes the jacket hang oddly like it always does with his hoodie or his coat, it’s a familiar sort of lopsidedness. _

  
  


_ Euthenia is the owl’s name, and she either circles above their heads or sits firmly on Chandler’s shoulder until he brings in a perch for her and sets it in his office. Then, she’s usually there, watching them through the glass when her human isn’t. _

  
  


_ And after, when the Ripper’s gone and Skip’s in the hospital, the DI and his owl who were supposed to be gone don’t leave at all. A green tea joins the other cups on the tray, a nest on a filing cabinet joins the perch in Chandler’s office, and the first time they both end up staying late over paperwork, halfway through they end up just - talking, while Euthenia steals Nessa and settles them both in her nest. _

  
  


_ Kent’s heart does something funny in his chest when Chandler only shakes his head at his owl’s antics, a tiny smile on his lips that doesn’t fade like the others. Attraction is one thing - he’s a gay copper, Kent knows how to pretend attraction is a thing that doesn’t happen to him on the clock. But this? _

  
  


_ “We’re in trouble,” Nessa says later, and unfortunately, Kent’s pretty sure she’s right. _

  
  


<><><>

  
  


One moment, Kent’s struggling - weakly, the crash and whatever Wyatt did to him clearly having taken its toll - and the next moment he’s sagging, deadweight in Chandler’s arms. “Damn it,” he mutters, tightening his grip so Kent doesn’t fall. He finds himself sinking down to the grass despite all usual inclinations, because it’s the easiest way to hold onto Kent.

  
  


Lynessa’s awake for a moment longer than her human, just long enough for Enia to settle around her protectively. She takes to preening the unconscious cat, and Chandler realizes after a moment that he’s running his fingers through Kent’s curls. There’s blood on his fingertips, the back of Kent’s head is tacky with it, and it’s that realization that has him fumbling for his radio to tell the paramedics who were following them that they’re needed. 

  
  


“You’ll be all right,” he tells Kent, hoping for some reaction and getting nothing.  _ Please be all right _ , he thinks, and he doesn’t want to let go when the medics come, but he knows he has to.

  
  


It’s almost anti-climactic, after that. The medics take Kent to the hospital and Chandler straightens his suit, trying to compose himself. It doesn’t work, not very well, and he spends long minutes in the mens’ toilet after changing his clothes, trying to scrub the blood off from under and around his fingernails. Head wounds always bleed more than most, he tries to remind himself, it’s not a good indicator of damage. 

  
  


Still, he doesn’t think he’ll soon forget the feeling of Kent going limp in his arms. 

  
  


It’s Wyatt’s confession, given calmly, that shakes him beyond repair. Wyatt’s raven is tied down by her feet, and she sits unmoving where they’ve put her, and her human is emotionless as he explains. Except for his eyes. There is a wild grief there, something dark and lost, as he talks about his Julian, how he’d lost him. 

  
  


_ So you thought you could do the same? _ Chandler wants to yell it at him, and that is why Miles and Riley are doing the interrogation and he is sitting outside the room to observe.

  
  


“I thought eventually it wouldn’t hurt anymore, when I looked at them. I thought this time, it’d be someone else taking the grief, and I’d get rid of it. He was so much like Julian, same job, a cat daemon, and when I saw the owl pick the cat up I knew…”

  
  


He looks at the glass then, and though Chandler knows Wyatt can’t see him it feels like those pale eyes - as light as his own, if a different color, and that makes his stomach knot - are staring right at him. Right through him. 

  
  


He doesn’t need to hear any more. He turns on his heel and walks out, Enia soaring above his head. They get back to their office before she settles on his shoulder again. “I want to go see them,” she says, and they both know who she means. 

  
  


“I’m sure Erica is there, it wouldn’t be appropriate.” 

  
  


“ _ Hang _ appropriate, we almost lost them! Again!”

  
  


“We’ve no right to intrude right now, Euthenia, and there’s an end to it!” Chandler snaps, and damn it, there’s still blood in his cuticles. Just the sight of it is enough to take him back, again, and he’s sitting on the grass with Kent unmoving in his arms, unconscious but  _ alive _ , he hasn’t lost him yet. It’s too much, all of it is too much, and he still has his pins, and sorting them is if nothing else something to do with his hands. It’s that or start picking at his hands, which won’t do anything but change whose blood is there and how fresh it is.

  
  


It only occurs to him that night, in a shower just this shy of scalding, that Wyatt is the first serial killer they’ve managed to keep alive. Chandler doesn’t know if that thought makes him want to cry or laugh. 

  
  


In the end, with the sound muffled by the pounding water, he does both, until he has to bite down on his own fist to keep it from turning into hysterics.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


The hospital keeps him overnight for observation. Kent really wants to object, but he can admit that two head injuries within twenty-four hours is the kind of thing someone should be under watch for. Still, it’s damned irritating, even when Erica leaves and Tristan shows up instead, his eyes tired behind his glasses. 

  
  


“Well, I thought you might want company, I know how you hate hospitals.” 

  
  


“Thanks, Tris. How are the cats?” 

  
  


“The animal ones or the human one I’ve somehow acquired?” Tristan asks as his snowy owl daemon hoots soft amusement. 

  
  


“Do I want to know?” Erica’s met the boyfriend in passing, some fit older bloke with a fox daemon and startlingly blue eyes (Kent and Tris have always both been weak for blue eyes, though other than that their types do not line up), but Kent hasn’t. He imagines he might eventually.

  
  


“Truthfully I don’t think I can tell you much, but they’re all quite well,” Tris laughs, and Kent dozes after that. He thinks at one point he sees his cousin tinkering with a pen and an alarming pile of very tiny machine parts, but he might have been dreaming that. He  _ hopes  _ he was dreaming that, because otherwise he’ll have to be very alarmed about just what “IT and engineering” means in the context of his cousin’s job duties. 

  
  


Erica takes him back to his new flat, once the doctors are willing to let him go. Kent’s been told he’s to take a week off, and so he curls up on his bed with Nessa tucked in next to him, and since his vision’s still a tad blurry, queues up a few audiobooks to listen to instead of trying to read or watch something on his laptop. He must drift off sometime in the middle of listening to a prequel to  _ Treasure Island _ , because he wakes up with a vague impression that Chandler showed up in his dreams in a 1700s outfit, which is really an embarrassing little note on the list of ways his damned infatuation crops up where it doesn’t belong.

  
  


Anyway, by the time he wakes up the book playing is a Star Wars novel, so who knows? 

  
  


He’s at the kitchenette waiting for his kettle to boil when there’s a knock at the door. Nessa, still curled on the bed, lifts her head, ears pricked, as Kent reaches over to turn the knob. He’s not sure who he expected - Erica or Tris, maybe, if he’d thought about it - but he doesn’t expect it to be Chandler. 

  
  


“Uh, hi,” he says, hurriedly stepping back to let Chandler by, though there’s not far to go. Kent’s new flat is practically the size of a postage stamp, which is fine for him and Nessa, but Chandler is tall enough that if he were to lay out on the floor he’d probably be damn near the length of the flat. Not that he would, of course, but just the fact of it makes Kent’s little studio seem that much smaller.

  
  


“Hello,” Chandler says, hands tucked in his pockets, and he seems as unsure as Kent feels. Euthenia, as ever, has no such compunctions and glides off Chandler’s shoulder to settle on Kent’s bed next to Nessa, tucking her under one wing. It’s hardly an unusual position, but they’re  _ on his bed _ and Kent can feel his ears burning. 

  
  


He turns back to Chandler and sees the flush creeping up his neck and cheeks. Strangely, it makes him feel better; he smiles, and after a moment Chandler smiles back. “Uh, do you want some tea?” 

  
  


“I was -” 

  
  


“Yes,” Euthenia says, neatly cutting off her human. Nessa purrs and Kent only just resists glowering at her. They need to not be so damned obvious. But the truth is, he feels worn yet, and strangely confused, and he can’t be bothered. 

  
  


He’s thinking about Dominic Wyatt - he knows the name now - and Julian Clark. He’s thinking about being part of a grieving man’s twisted coping method, and thinking about it hard enough that he misses Chandler’s words. 

  
  


“Kent?!” 

  
  


“I’m sorry, sir, I’m a little out of it yet. Just woke up.” 

  
  


“I was asking if you were all right. Did I wake you?” 

  
  


“No, no, I was waiting for my kettle, actually. I’m all right, just tired mostly.” The kettle goes off and Emerson gets out two mugs and tea bags, pouring the water and then fetching the milk. They end up at his little table, and their knees brush only because Chandler’s legs are so long. Still, neither of them pull away, and Kent had figured Chandler would. 

  
  


“Wyatt’s locked up properly,” Chandler says after a moment. 

  
  


“Finally got one to stick then,” Kent says, because it really has been their luck, that they catch the perps but they don’t keep them, and a trail of bodies is what’s left. “Maybe I should fit the profiles more often.” 

  
  


He makes the joke because if he doesn’t he’s not sure what he’ll do, but he regrets it immediately at the look on Chandler’s face. “ _ No _ , that’s - Kent -” Chandler stops, staring down at the mug he’s gripping too tightly. He’s still staring at it when he says, “If we’d come too late, we wouldn’t have him. I’d have killed him myself.” His voice is low, tense, and Kent doesn’t know what to do with it. With the sentiment, the tone, any of it.

  
  


He doesn’t want to hope anymore. He’s tired of it, he’s reached the point where this is just how he is, in love with his boss, and no chance with him at all. So he doesn’t know what to do, now. He doesn’t know, but here’s the thing. He just escaped a serial killer by driving a car through a garage door. With that in mind, maybe - maybe he can push through this too. 

  
  


Maybe Chandler might just be willing to catch him here too.

  
  


<><><>

  
  


Chandler can’t believe he’s just said that. He shouldn’t have, he knows, because it crosses half a dozen lines and Kent’s not responding anyway. The silence drags on, and on, and he’d be fleeing right about now except that Enia’s not so much as budged and Kent’s knee is still warm against his own and he -

  
  


“He thought I’d be the last one,” Kent says quietly, and Chandler dares to look up to find those dark eyes on him. Dark and haunted but clear and alive, not like the glassy, dazed look from that moment before he’d blacked out or the far, far worse image his sleeping brain had conjured up over and over. 

  
  


“Yes, I know. He - what I saw of his interrogation, he implied something of the kind. Because you’re also a police officer, like Julian Clark was.” 

  
  


“That wasn’t really it.” Kent looks away then, at their daemons still tucked up together at the foot of his bed -  _ God _ , why did Enia have to settle  _ there  _ with Lynessa?

  
  


“I know. He said. Apparently our daemons… give it away.” Honestly, Chandler thinks, he ought to be able to say it, he’s thirty-seven years old, so what’s stopping him? And though he knows what’s stopping him, what’s been stopping him, that doesn’t make it feel any less idiotic here and now, in this moment.

  
  


“He said that to me too,” Kent says, and he turns back now, something melancholy in his eyes. “I didn’t think much of it. Just because he had me right, by chance, didn’t mean he  _ was  _ right.” 

  
  


“Did you want him to be?” It’s a stupid question - did Kent want a killer to be right - but Chandler isn’t sure how else to ask it. He’s never known, and perhaps that’s why things went wrong, every single time. But he has a context this time, he has a way to ask without asking and maybe -

  
  


“Well… No, not exactly,” Kent says. “Because if he was right, in what he actually thought, then if he killed me his grief for Julian would go away because in killing me he’d pass that to you. I don’t want to die, I don’t want you to be grieving for anyone, so… Not exactly, but… But I’d be lying, if I didn’t want you to feel about me what I do about you.”

  
  


“In other words, we’ve loved you for ages, so if you’re not trying to say something similar to us, it was very rude to get our hopes - oh!” 

  
  


The reason Lynessa’s sarcastic translation of her human’s rambling cuts off like that is because Enia, as ever, takes matters into her own hands. Well, talons. She catches up the little sand cat and flies up as high as the ceiling will allow, depositing Lynessa into Chandler’s lap before settling on Kent’s shoulder as if she does this every day. 

  
  


They stare at each other, as Enia turns her head so she can preen Kent’s hair, and Lynessa nudges Chandler’s hand with her head like a pet cat seeking attention. He scratches behind her ears and hears Kent gasp, low and sharp, but then Kent is reaching up to stroke a hand down Enia’s back and Chandler’s head spins, his breath catches in his throat. 

  
  


They say that teenagers’ daemons sometimes settle like this, that in the glow of young romances contact like this just… cements their forms. Chandler believes it, with Lynessa’s fur under his fingers and looking across the little table into Kent’s wide dark eyes. He wonders distantly if he looks just as stunned, just as breathless, and thinks he probably does. 

  
  


Then the daemons are off them, settling on the table now, and Chandler feels so bereft, so  _ cold  _ \- he’s not sure which of them got up first but he knows he’s the one who catches Kent’s wrist and pulls him close, pressing his face into dark curls. 

  
  


“I thought I was going to lose you. I thought I already had, in most ways,” he says, his voice rough. 

  
  


“Nah. Can’t shake me now, promise,” Kent says, the words muffled against Chandler’s shoulder. It’s the easiest thing in the world - how,  _ how  _ is it easy, it’s never been easy, but Enia’s never had anyone else’s daemon tucked safe under her wing - for Chandler to tilt Kent’s head up and kiss him softly. But it’s Kent who makes a sound low in his throat, whose fingers curl in Chandler’s jacket almost desperately, opening for him so the kiss deepens as naturally as it began - 

  
  


“You’re still hurt,” Chandler murmurs when he reluctantly draws back, resting their foreheads together because he doesn’t want to go far. 

  
  


“I’m fine, Joe, honestly - ”

  
  


“Emerson, please.” The feel of Kent warm and pressed close doesn’t erase what it had been like outside Wyatt’s house, it can’t. Maybe it will eventually, but not yet, not now. But it’s so much better, and something unknots inside him.

  
  


“You’re going to be a worrier, aren’t you,” Kent says, and it’s not a question, but it’s not really a criticism either when it’s said with amused fondness and a soft smile. 

  
  


“It seems I will, yeah,” Chandler concedes. 

  
  


“Well, that’s all right then. We have time.” 

  
  


They do have time. In spite of all that’s happened, in spite of what’s almost happened more than once to take one of them away, they have time. 


End file.
